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What to do in your garden in September

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could still find a bit of time to enjoy sitting in the garden. Ah well back to the garden – it’s a good time to begin general maintenance on the lawn, along with tidying borders and containers so they will be ready for planting spring flowering subjects. Also a number of vegetable and flower seeds can now be sown outside and inside.

For raising new blackberry plants, bury tips into the soil of any shoots that have developed this year, as they will quickly form roots and new shoots will develop next spring. Once this has happened the new plants can be separated and planted where you plan to grow them.

Try to avoid wasp damage to early fruiting apples by hanging wasp traps in the branches of the trees.

Pick fruit from these early ripening varieties as soon as they are sweet enough to eat as they don’t keep.

All shoots that have carried peaches should be pruned so that newly formed ones can be tied to ones formed this year and these will flower next spring.

Crops of raspberries, blackberries and other autumn-fruiting varieties should be covered with netting to keep birds away. However, the netting should be checked daily making sure no birds or any other animals are trapped.

Sweet peas can be sown in a cold frame or unheated greenhouse to over-winter, the young plants can then be planted out in March/April to obtain early blooms.

It is now a good time to begin watering dormant cyclamen pot plants which were left to die down for a rest.

When rose blooms have faded a last deadheading of roses can be done, and taller stems may be slightly shortened so that movement from wind can be reduced.

During the early part of this month stem cuttings may be taken. Cut a length of stem, remove the soft tip just above a leaf joint, cutting below a joint at the base removing all but the top three leaves. Place directly into the soil approximately 30cm (12″) to about half its length somewhere in the garden where they can remain to root and develop for about a year.

Gardening Glossary:

A hardy annual is a temporary visitor to the garden as it grows from seed (sown direct in the garden),flowers and dies in a single season. A half hardy annual also grows, flowers and dies in a single season but the seedlings need to be grown indoors and not planted out until the risk of […]